single-screen
video work by Kooj Chuhan with theLo-Stock
Hi-Dramagroup

A
turbulent video installation produced by Kooj Chuhan and drama students
at Lostock High School, based on the book "Refugee Boy" by
Benjamin Zephaniah, in which a series of doubts and myths are overcome
in the joint efforts to stop fellow student and refugee Alem Kelo from
being deported.

This
is the result of a series of workshops at Lostock Community High School
in Trafford, Gtr Manchester, which began with a set of sessions called
"Borders Between People" to discuss the issues around asylum,
devised by Kooj Chuhan and teacher Mark Krantz. Critically, they
found that discussions based around simple human concerns, which avoided
the usage of phrases such as ‘asylum-seeker’ yet focused on exactly
the same issues, led to a completely different dialogue and perception
of the issue – one which was almost universally sympathetic and led to
the students all writing passionate letters to the Home Secretary.Mark is keen to use these materials on an annual basis to form a
regular module within the 'Citizenship' curriculum. As a part of
these workshops, particular extracts from the excellent novel
"Refugee Boy" were used.

Following
this came a short series of drama and video workshops by Kooj with
teacher Sue Hilton which involved various scenarios to recreate
abstracted ideas from "Refugee Boy", and designed for shooting
on video. The students responded to the idea that Alem Kelo (the
main character in "Refugee Boy") was actually at the school
and about to be deported. The ‘turning around’ of many
students views which took place during the “Borders Between People”
sessions became the basis for the video narrative in which a variety of
race disputes are resolved by simple human appreciation for a fellow
student’s predicament. In addition to scripting and production, the
students also carried out an entire set of rough edits for the work.